My dear friend GUY, I dont think much of you. It seems to me that you are a child that still needs to learn the facts of life. Everybody has their own believes and aspects of life. Where you dont believe in GOD others do. I think you should keep your mouth shut for a while and have respect for the other members of this forum, maybe then will you notice everybody has a different opinion, including yourself.

Blood Wolf wrote:My dear friend GUY, I dont think much of you. It seems to me that you are a child that still needs to learn the facts of life. Everybody has their own believes and aspects of life. Where you dont believe in GOD others do. I think you should keep your mouth shut for a while and have respect for the other members of this forum, maybe then will you notice everybody has a different opinion, including yourself.

So why dont you grow-up yourself child.

While I may not agree with the way he made his point, I agree with Guy's sentiment (which means I am of the opinion that you're a jerkoff, btw - an opinion that I am clearly entitled to have).

And while I don't automatically dislike people who use climbing forums to prattle on about their religious beliefs (bar atheism, of course, because that's all trendy and anarchic and emo and cool), I do believe there was a reason that the Romans fed Christians to the lions.

Really?!?! You're kidding? No? I blame my parents, in that case. I suppose that not all of us are lucky enough to have a name like Blood Wolf. It must make you feel very hardcore.

I bet all the dudes in your World of Warcraft tribe are jealous of your name.

Seriously though, you get a 9 out of 10 for creativity. That's definitely not something I've heard in my 27 years on this planet. You confounded my expectations. Well done. The world needs more creative thinkers like you.

I completely agree with Hann's last post - which was the intended purpose of my initial post.

As regards the religious stuff - I find religion highly offensive (everything from the Crusades to Dr Laura Schlessinger's intolerant homophobia) so I'll continue with my offensive signature while other forum members continue to punt their views (I will remove my signature as soon as the other people remove theirs - as I also believe that religion has no place on a climbing forum).

Marshall wrote:"You traddies are an emotional bunch, Marshall." Yea...we have some thing to get emotional about....we have bigger winkies!

A typical response from the traddie brigade. Freud would be having a field day listening to you referring to your "winkie" using the diminutive.

Q: How many traddies does it take to change a lightbulb?A: One to hold the bulb, while the world revolves around them.

Marshall wrote:What is the diffrence between Dr Laura Schlessinger's intolerant homophobia, Guy's signature & all other religious statements? There is no diffrence...none of them belong on the climbing forum.

I would say the chief difference is that Schlessingers rants could be considered hate speech and/or bigotry, while Guy's sig is merely a piece of advice. It may be offensive to people, but it is far from hate speech, because it is scientifically valid - the Christian doctrine is built on faith (which is believing in something you can't prove), as opposed to proof.

Of course, if you can prove that there is a god, you would, obviously, prove Guy wrong and could force him to retract his advice, but is that going to happen?

And anyway, should climbing forums really be exclusively dedicated to climbers discussing climbing (boring and arbitrary), or climbers discussing everything (vaguely more interesting)? Seriously, does anyone want to see a message from another meathelmet who doesn't have any friends and wants to go climbing this weekend?

Oom Charles was also a major racist. The original full title of of his famous 1859 book was \"Origin of The Species by Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life\" True story ... check it out.

I'm with Stu on this one, where is the actual proof?

Happy.

Last edited by Marshall on Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Going back to the original posting by Grigri ... maybe the point he is trying to make is that perhaps some of Lloyd's mates were both trad climbers and boulderers, and would have liked to have attended both the Table Mountain event and the bouldering competition? Although I didn't know Lloyd, I am sure he was not anti-bouldering competitions, and in respected of his mates' interests would have preferred it for his mates not to have to make a choice?

Yeah thanks Allan! Sense at last! I was simply having a bitch at Tinie for convening the meet on the same day. I even specifically left Lloyds name out of the original moan to avoid darkening the rememberance of him. To see things spiral into the catfight that ensued was pretty sad and the religious arguments are completely tasteless considering Lloyd was a believer!!

In retrospect my choice of title for the thread was unfortunate and misleading. The last time I saw Lloyd was him pitching up at City Rock to boulder and train, obviously stressed from a hectic day he literally wiped the frown from his brow, and putting on a smile, threw himself wholeheartedly into talking about and practicing climbing, which after all is what its all about (not pointless banter on the web!). He will remain an example to us all, even if some of us beg to differ with his opinion of what real climbing is. Im sure he is sitting up there now having a wry chuckle at how pathetic this squabble is!

Marshall wrote:Oom Charles was also a major racist. The original full title of of his famous 1859 book was "Origin of The Species by Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" True story ... check it out.

Not Darwin's intention at all - he was merely talking about how some races are 'favoured' in terms of their adaption to their surroundings and survive, and some aren't (i.e. how the Patagonian indians have a higher level of body fat, allowing them to spend more time in cold water than, say, sportclimbers).

BTW, Marshall, read This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson, if you haven't. It's a slightly fictionalised account of Darwin and Fitzroys formative voyages, but it describes, apparently quite accurately, a lot of the circumstances that went into the theorisation of evolution.

Marshall wrote:I'm with Stu on this one, where is the actual proof?

Where's the actual proof? That depends on where you look - obviously it's going to be difficult to show human evolution in action - evolution is trans-generational and thus almost impossible to "show" in organisms with a long generational cycle (i.e. humans). That said, things like genetic records, and DNA, show us as having a common ancestor to apes.

But, you there's been a lot of study of organisms with shorter generational cycles for proof, like Galapagos finches, fruit flies and viruses. For example, the Galapagos finches, which Darwin used to posit his theory (and it was a theory at that point, with little proof and a lot of extrapolation), were used in a later, much longer 50 year study. THe findings were that there were transgenerational, adaptive changes because of resource usage and availability (i.e. they evolved to deal with new and/or unavailable food sources).

Or fruit flies, where they took two sister species (with divergent characteristics) and 'overlapped' them - expecting the divergent characteristics to become more pronounced in order to make the species more competitive. However, after a few generations, these characteristics had converged, based on molecular changes in the flies. THe convergence was based on making the fruit flies more attractive to a wider base of mates.

Or viruses - how is it that mutant viruses, such as the latest strain of TB exist? They have adapted, or evolved, in order to survive in the face of predators and enemies (such as antibiotics) - survival of the fittest in action - the weak virus cells (those unable to cope with the antibiotic) die, while the strong ones (which can cope) multiply over a few generations and become a new, resistant strain.

OK, let's hope this stirs up some more debate. Refutation, anyone? (I have tons of this - my girlfriend is an evolutionary biologist)

Dom, there is no denying micro-evoluation, we adapt every day. I'm talking about on a larger scale. Evolution as it originally was according to Darwin is a whole lot different from what it has evolved into today. In fact according to a lot of what Darwin originally theorised evolution would not have been possible. I guess one of the points I'm trying to make is that Evolution as a concept is continually changing, everytime a new piece of 'evidence' is uncovered all previous theories are dropped and people still hold onto it just like a religion, and yet people dismiss creationists as loonies.
A question: You find one dinosour bone in North America and another in South Africa. When you combine the two they seem to fit perfectly and so the conclusion is made that you have found a new line in the development of that animal? No, right, well this is the way evolutionists think when working. New discoveries are always thought to be a key piece of evidence, why not just a long extinct cousin of a chimp or simply a birth gone wrong, why a link in the chain of our human ancestors?
I'm not saying to stop looking or even quell your passion, just don't look too hard or you will probably find what you are looking for no matter what and let eveyone else enjoy their own beliefs without being labeled.
Why leave it there though, ever studied cosmology Dom, in my opinion there is even more conclusive proof of a 'plan' for the universe (won't go into that here) and with blueprints comes a designer right? Anyway no direspect to Lloyd at all, the discussion just went in another direction.

'In the scientific sense, \"facts\" are what theories attempt to explain. So, for scientists \"theory\" and \"fact\" do not stand in opposition, but rather exist in a reciprocal relationship; for example, it is a \"fact\" that an apple will fall to the ground if it becomes dislodged from a branch and the \"theory\" which explains this is the current theory of gravitation. In the same way, heritable variation, natural selection (Darwin's theory), and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are \"facts\", and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the \"theory of evolution\".'
- wikipedia

Stu wrote:Dom, there is no denying micro-evoluation, we adapt every day. I'm talking about on a larger scale. Evolution as it originally was according to Darwin is a whole lot different from what it has evolved into today. In fact according to a lot of what Darwin originally theorised evolution would not have been possible. I guess one of the points I'm trying to make is that Evolution as a concept is continually changing, everytime a new piece of 'evidence' is uncovered all previous theories are dropped and people still hold onto it just like a religion, and yet people dismiss creationists as loonies. A question: You find one dinosour bone in North America and another in South Africa. When you combine the two they seem to fit perfectly and so the conclusion is made that you have found a new line in the development of that animal? No, right, well this is the way evolutionists think when working. New discoveries are always thought to be a key piece of evidence, why not just a long extinct cousin of a chimp or simply a birth gone wrong, why a link in the chain of our human ancestors?I'm not saying to stop looking or even quell your passion, just don't look too hard or you will probably find what you are looking for no matter what and let eveyone else enjoy their own beliefs without being labeled.Why leave it there though, ever studied cosmology Dom, in my opinion there is even more conclusive proof of a 'plan' for the universe (won't go into that here) and with blueprints comes a designer right? Anyway no direspect to Lloyd at all, the discussion just went in another direction.

Could it be that evolution, as a theory, is evolving? Which, in a philosophical sense, means that there's some direct proof for evolution right there.

Stu, you mention large-scale evolution - surely evolution is a micro-process based on the compounding of day-to-day adaptations? Many of Darwin's theories are still valid, especially that regarding the impossibility of evolving out of your genus (I think it's genus, but it may be species, so I may be wrong) but bear in mind that they were made before the discovery of gene records and DNA, which have increased (allowed us to evolve?) our knowledge of evolution substantially.

I don't agree with your assumption regarding the behaviour of evolutionists (besides the fact that I'm not sure whether you are talking about believers in evolution, or evolutionary scientists?) - any scientist, using any kind of rigorous approach, knows better than to jump to conclusions. You're trying to tar them with the same brush as people who defend creationism despite not being able to offer any proof other than blind faith.

In terms of belief, I believe science, as long as it's good science. I believe many of the evolutionary theories to be good science, possibly in the same way that many creationists believe it to be a good theory. I may be an atheist, but I have tried to leave my religion out of this discussion. I've never studied cosmology, but then again, I've never studied evolution - can you recommend any books to get the gist of it?

This topic has gone off route (non climbing related) and was summed up by Grigri 5 posts up. Therefore this topic has to be locked. Any further discussion should be done off line. Any requests to re-open the topic can be sent to me.